The video game industry is one of the largest and fastest growing in the world. It generated more than $150 billion in revenue last year and this number seems likely to increase in 2020 thanks to huge releases like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, The Last of Us Part 2 and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
As the industry grows however, so too do the complications and implications that go hand in hand with success. Litigation and public scrutiny of video games is becoming increasingly prevalent, with Electronic Arts the latest publisher to find themselves on the wrong end of a class action lawsuit.
It’s far from the first time that a publisher has faced such a lawsuit and one suspects that it will not be the last either. Throughout gaming’s history there have been countless high-profile lawsuits, with some companies being involved with more than their fair share.
10 Universal vs. Nintendo (1984)
Although fairly well established in Japan at the time, it was not until the 1981 release of Donkey Kong that Nintendo were able to gain a foothold in the lucrative North American market. The arcade classic was an instant hit with gamers, but it also drew some unwanted attention from Universal. They believed that the character and the game’s storyline were similar to King Kong and after discussions about royalties proved unproductive, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Nintendo hired prominent attorney John Kirby to represent them and it was thanks to his arguments that the case was eventually found in Nintendo’s favor. Kirby not only highlighted several key differences between the two characters, but also presented evidence that cast doubt on Universal’s rights to the King Kong character itself.
9 Nintendo vs. Blockbuster (1989)
Modern gamers will likely not remember the days of video game rentals, but back in the 80’s and 90’s it was common practice. Whilst incredibly lucrative for rental companies though, publishers like Nintendo were missing out on a lot of revenue. For shorter titles in particular, the incentive to purchase games was greatly diminished by the ability to rent and complete them for a fraction of the cost.
Although Japanese law allowed Nintendo to prevent businesses from renting out their games domestically, there was very little legal recourse for stopping American businesses. Instead, Nintendo filed a copyright lawsuit after it emerged that Blockbuster had been photocopying instruction manuals to give out with their rentals. The case was settled out of court, with Blockbuster going on to provide generic third-party manuals instead.
8 3Dfx Interactive vs. Sega & NEC (1997)
The development of the Sega Dreamcast was a little unorthodox. Rather than focusing on a single design, Sega set up two competing teams that each came up with their own ideas. One of these teams worked closely with a company called 3Dfx in order to provide the graphical muscle for the system whilst the other partnered with the Japanese firm NEC.
Sega eventually opted for the NEC chip, which angered 3Dfx. They believed that an agreement was in place and decided to file a lawsuit against both Sega and NEC to pursue damages. The matter was settled out of court the following year, although the exact terms of the settlement were never publicly disclosed.
7 The City Of Los Angeles vs. Take-Two Interactive (2006)
The Grand Theft Auto series is never too far from controversary. Perhaps one of the most notable examples of this came in the form of a sex minigame that was left buried in the files of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. ‘Hot Coffee’, as it was known, went completely unnoticed for nearly a year, but sparked outrage after mods were released to enable it in the game’s PC release.
This led to the City of Loss Angeles filing a lawsuit against the game’s publisher Take-Two Interactive. The suit was eventually consolidated with several class-action suits that had also been filed against the publisher. After nearly four years of litigation, Take-Two eventually agreed to pay out more than $20m to settle the matter.
6 Take-Two Interactive vs. Thompson (2007)
Take-Two Interactive have been on the wrong end of numerous lawsuits connected to the Grand Theft Auto series. Many of these were instigated by just one man. Former attorney turned activist Jack Thompson was involved with various lawsuits against the publisher between 2003 and 2006. After a failed legal bid to block the release of Bully, Take-Two had finally had enough.
On March 13th, 2007 the publisher filed a pre-emptive lawsuit which sought to prevent Thompson from making future legal attempts to block the publisher’s releases. It took just over a month for the two sides to reach a settlement, with Take-Two agreeing to drop the lawsuit in exchange for Thompson meeting their earlier demands.
5 Nintendo vs. Burt (2009)
It’s somewhat rare for an individual to be taken to court by a multinational company, but that’s exactly what happened in the case of Nintendo vs. Burt. James Burt was able to purchase a copy of New Super Mario Bros. ahead of the game’s release. He then preceded to upload some of the game’s content to the internet – which Nintendo claimed led to a significant loss of sales revenue.
The case was settled out of court and Burt was ordered to pay $1.5m to compensate Nintendo for their loss. Whether or not the Australian ever paid off the full amount is unclear, but it certainly sent a clear message to would be pirates nonetheless. A few years later Nintendo sent Burt a limited edition Ganon statue, suggesting that there are no hard feelings between the two sides.
4 Sony vs. Hotz (2011)
The 27th annual Chaos Communication Conference took place in December of 2010. It was there that a group of hackers by the name of fail0verflow revealed details of how they’d discovered the PS3‘s private key. This could have allowed players to run homebrew and pirated software on the system which was obviously a big problem for Sony. A few weeks later, prominent member George Hotz was hit with a lawsuit.
It would appear that the main aim of the suit was to limit the spread of the information – although this proved difficult thanks to its rapid spread. As a day in court loomed, a breakthrough in discussions between the two parties occurred. Three months to the day after the suit was first filed, a settlement was reached with Hotz agreeing to refrain from hacking any Sony products in the future.
3 Digital Homicide vs. Jim Sterling (2016)
Jim Sterling is one of the most outspoken video game journalists in the industry and to say that he has ruffled a few feathers during his time would be a bit of an understatement. Some of those feathers belonged to Digital Homicide, the company responsible for a game called The Slaughtering Grounds. Sterling critiqued the title during a Let’s Play and, put simply, he wasn’t a fan.
After a number of attempts to have Sterling’s video removed from YouTube, company co-founder James Romine filed a defamation suit seeking damages of $10m. Proceedings dragged on for some time, but Romine eventually agreed to drop the suit with prejudice and to refrain from filing any more spurious DMCA takedown notices with YouTube.
2 Solid Oak Sketches vs. 2K Games & Take-Two Interactive (2016)
Tattoos have become a pretty common sight on elite athletes over the past decade or two. As a consequence, they’re now a common sight in many sports simulation titles as well. With this in mind, it’s likely that 2K didn’t give too much thought to their decision to include the tattoos of several of the basketball players featured in their NBA 2K franchise.
In February 2016 however, they were informed of a lawsuit filed by Solid Oak Sketches, a company which owns the rights to designs tattooed on numerous NBA players. The legal proceedings went on for some time, but the judge presiding over the case eventually ruled that the use of the tattoos fell under the fair use defense and thus did not infringe on Solid Oak Sketches’ copyright.
1 Epic vs. Apple & Epic vs. Google (2020)
The ‘freefortnite’ hashtag may not be trending anymore, but Epic‘s legal battles with Apple and Google are still very much ongoing. The company filed two separate lawsuits against the tech giants in August 2020 after fortnight was removed from both the App Store and the Google Play store for breaching terms of service.
Epic had updated the game to allow players to purchase in-game currency directly from Epic, thus circumnavigating the payment systems put in place by Apple and Google. They argue that the 30% cuts taken for in-app purchases and app sales are excessive and that the tech giants hold a monopoly on both the distribution and monetization of software.
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